Chris Parker…believes God made the world…[U]ltimately, it is because: “As a Christian, I have believed in it for a long time and I have no reason to doubt it.”

Well, that of course depends on what you mean by ‘reason to doubt it.’ But that’s just it, isn’t it. ‘No reason to doubt it’ often means just no inclination to doubt it, no motivation to doubt it, no desire to doubt it, no intention of doubting it. In short, it doesn’t mean anything epistemic, it refers to desire and will and motivation, which is another matter. Faith-based people tend to think that desire and motivation trump epistemic issues, so that what one believes really has nothing to do with evidence; evidence is beside the point; evidence is supremely and thoroughly irrelevant; what is relevant is what one has believed for a long time and wants to go on believing. This is understandable on an emotional level, but it makes for crap thinking, and crap thinking, as we keep being reminded, is dangerous.

Kim Nicholas…agrees. “I have grown up in a family that goes to church and I have become a Christian,” she says…”If you have faith in God you can believe he has done it, whether there is evidence or not.”

Yes, you can. You shouldn’t (cognitively speaking), but you can.

Annie Nawaz…distinguishes between scientific and “natural” evidence written in stone in the holy books. “As a practising Muslim, the holy Qur’an – that’s our proper evidence,” she says. It does bother her when this conflicts with other kinds of evidence, but “it just comes down to the way you have been brought up and your beliefs and values and how strong they are”.

It comes down to whether or not your beliefs and values are strong enough to allow you to ignore the evidence that conflicts with your beliefs, and opt to believe blindly in a holy book. Some people consider that kind of strength a virtue and a gift; others consider it a vice and a plague.

“According to Linda Woodhead, professor in the sociology of religion at Lancaster University, religious studies is now the biggest growth subject in schools. She suggests that this reflects pupils’ interest in philosophical and moral questions – questions that are likely to persist into their undergraduate years. “I don’t think there is anywhere in the curriculum where most university students get these sorts of questions addressed,” she says.”

No, when I was at school we had to rely on History and Literature to get ideas about these matters. I guess all they’re being taught at schools now is how to get into Universities. Shaming.

Oh get over it, GT. The defense of truth does not rest on your ability to call people liars on this site, and your repetitive calling people liars does not advance the cause of truth. Reiterative name-calling is not such a useful tactic as you seem to think.

If a person is honestly mistaken, and you present him with the evidence, he will cease being mistaken, or cease being honest.

What he ‘is’ is in his control, not yours.

Calling the names is an attack that builds up your personal self-esteem, by trying to cut down the other. The other person correctly recognises this as not evidence, but attack, and defends not his intellectual position but his self. His response: basically, f*** you. He gets arousal, a tiny shot of adrenaline.

What I do get is a feeling of desperate sickness, as I see the world sliding inexorably into World War III, fought over exactly the same issuesa as number II, but with nukes.

It is all beeing cheered on by unbelievable nutters like Ahmendijad (watch out for his response next Tuesday 22nd August – I do hope they haven’t managed to cobble together a simple one-off nuke) and a (presently) tiny minority of christians in the USA who want the “Rapture”.

I’m desperately trying to do my bit to stop this insanity, and getting absolutely nowhere.

I was born in 1946 in the shadow of the Nazis’ apparent total defeat, and whilst growing up, I watched the country and the rest of Europe recover from that terrible self-inflicted wound.

Now it is all ahppeniong again, and very few people are even listening, never mind trying to stop it.

And all some people here can do is whinge, when i point out that some christians and muslims ( “extremists” only, of course! ) are deliberately decieving people as to their aims, objectives, and programmes.

Actually, what ChrisPer said is, in one important area correct … “he will cease being mistaken, or cease being honest.”

That’s it: They will cease being honest – not that they were honest to start wih – oddly enough excepting Ahmenidjad – he’s honest, but like Adolf, completely mad.

It’s not whingeing, GT, it’s saying that the site – for reasons which were explained in some detail – can’t risk being accused of libel and that therefore the word ‘lie’ and its cognates are forbidden.

I repeat – the resistance to theocracy and WWIII does not depend on your unfettered ability to call people liars in comments on the Notes and Comment section of Butterflies and Wheels. It just doesn’t. Your comments on the Notes and Comment section of Butterflies and Wheels don’t play a huge role in that resistance. They just don’t. So get over it and shut up about it.